A woman who allegedly drove drunk and killed an 18-year-old man as he tried to cross Sepulveda Boulevard in Manhattan Beach last year told officers that she was aware of the dangers of drinking and driving through family members, high school and through her own experience being a passenger in a drunken driving crash, according to evidence presented during her preliminary hearing on Tuesday, July 28.
But it was the fact that Jenia Resha Belt’s license had been suspended because of a prior drunken driving arrest that stood out to Judge Thomas R. Sokolov in determining that she knew it was inherently dangerous to drive in the early morning hours of May 4, 2025.
After the hours-long hearing, Sokolov ruled enough evidence existed to have Belt, 34, stand trial on counts of murder, gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and misdemeanor driving on a suspended license.
Belt was behind the wheel of a silver Infiniti SUV driving northbound on Sepulveda Boulevard just before 12:45 a.m., when she fatally struck Braun Levi in the left northbound lane at Ronda Drive. Belt stopped and called police, but failed field-sobriety tests and was arrested, the evidence showed.
Levi was a nationally ranked tennis player who attended Loyola High School in Los Angeles.
Juantanae Daniels, who testified during the hearing that Belt is her best friend, testified that they met with a group of friends at a South Los Angeles home for brunch about 11 a.m. and hung out all day until they decided to head to Hermosa Beach, arriving at the pier area around 11:20 p.m.
They went to a bar, but left abruptly when Daniels’ sister became upset after losing her Apple Watch, she testified.
Daniels and four others jumped into Belt’s SUV to head back to the South Los Angeles home. Daniels was in the front passenger seat when the crash occurred and testified that she was so shaken up that she walked away to try to calm herself down. She never returned to the scene of the accident, she said.
Belt was seen on body-worn camera telling an officer that she slowed down to avoid a pedestrian, then continued before another appeared, leading to the crash.
When asked multiple times, Daniels said she could not recall seeing any alcoholic beverage in Belt’s hand at any point either at the home or at the bar.
Officer Jimmy Rellis testified that he arrived on scene to find Levi lying next to the SUV, which had a shattered windshield and an indented hood. California Highway Patrol Officer Jeffrey Crain, who was on a team that reconstructed the crash site, testified that he calculated the SUV traveling between 49 mph and 53 mph prior to the crash. The speed limit along that stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard is 35 mph, he testified.
Levi was with three friends attempting to cross Sepulveda Boulevard at Ronda Drive. One of the friends told an officer that they had been drinking at a nearby house party and that after the three made it across safely, they turned around and noticed Levi walking slowly across lanes and yelled at him to hurry up, Manhattan Beach Police Officer Chasen Gaunt testified.
“But for Mr. Braun stepping into the roadway, this collision would not have occurred,” Belt’s attorney, Kevin Hawkins, argued in asking the judge to dismiss the two most serious counts. “This isn’t a situation where Ms. Belt’s reckless driving caused this. This is someone in the middle of the street at 1 a.m.”
Hawkins pointed out that Gaunt, the investigating officer, had noted two causes for the crash: Belt driving under the influence and Levi being in the roadway outside of a crosswalk and not yielding the right of way to vehicles, creating a road hazard.
The motion to dismiss was denied by Sokolov.
Deputy District Attorney Brittany Vannoy said Belt was “on notice” after she saw the first pedestrian and said the fact that Levi was struck in the left lane meant he had already been in the roadway for a sufficient amount of time for her to see him.
“But for her extremely high blood alcohol content and excessive speed, the victim may not have died,” Vannoy said. “This is not a case where Braun Levi jumped out in front of the car.”
During a portion of Belt’s interviews with officers days after the crash, which were played in court, she told them that she believed she could operate a vehicle safely up until she finished two bottles of wine, a statement Sokolov later called “unfathomable to this court.”
Immediately after the crash, Belt told Manhattan Beach officers she had one Moscow Mule at the bar before driving. While answering questions, Rellis said Belt spoke loudly, slurred her words, kept repeating information and appeared to have red, watery eyes, which led him to believe she may have been under the influence. She performed poorly in field-sobriety tests, he said.
Belt was given two breath tests nearly two hours after the crash, both of which showed her blood alcohol level at 0.19%, more than twice the legal limit, Rellis testified.
Belt was arrested in 2023 on suspicion of driving under the influence and hit-and-run with property damage, but took a plea deal on the hit-and-run charge while and the alcohol-related counts were dismissed.
Belt was never given a Watson advisement, where a judge tells a defendant that if they drink and drive and someone dies as a result, they could be charged with murder, Hawkins said, but her license was suspended as a result of the plea deal.
Levi had planned to attend the University of Virginia after graduation, family members have said. The family had moved to Hermosa Beach after losing their home in the Pacific Palisades in the Palisades fire.